we might meet again.
Poor dear thing, she is an extremely affectionate girl, and quite broke
down when saying good-bye."

"D'you know where they have gone to, mother?"

"No. They mean to move about from place to place, I believe."

"Nita said nothing about writing to you, did she?"

"Did they leave any address--a _poste restante_--anywhere, or any clew
whatever as to their whereabouts?"

"None whatever."

So then, during the weary days of suffering that he knew full well lay
before him, poor Lewis had no consolatory thought in regard to Nita save
in her expressed "earnest hope" that they might meet again. It was not
much, but it was better than nothing. Being an ingenious as well as
daring architect, Lewis built amazing structures on that slight
foundation--structures which charmed his mental eyes to look upon, and
which, we verily believe, tended to facilitate his recovery--so potent
is the power of true love!

"Captain Wopper," said Mrs Stoutley one morning, towards the end of
their stay in Switzerland, Lewis having been pronounced sufficiently
restored to travel homeward by easy stages, "I have sent for you to ask
you to do me a favour--to give me your advice--your--"

Here, to the Captain's amazement, not to say consternation, Mrs
Stoutley's voice trembled, and she burst into tears. If she had
suddenly caught him by the nose, pulled his rugged face down and kissed
it, he could not have been more taken aback.

"My dear madam," he stammered, sitting down inadvertently on Mrs
Stoutley's bonnet--for it was to the good lady's private dressing-room
that he had been summoned by Gillie White--"hold on! don't now, please!
What ever have I done to--"

"You've done nothing, my dear Captain," said Mrs Stoutley, endeavouring
to check her tears. "There, I'm very foolish, but I can't help it.
Indeed I can't."

In proof of the truth of this assertion she broke down again, and the
Captain, moving uneasily on his chair, ground the bonnet almost to
powder--it was a straw one.

"You have been a kind friend, Captain Wopper," said Mrs Stoutley,
drying her eyes, "a very kind friend."

"I'm glad you think so, ma'am; I've meant to be--anyhow."

"You have, you have," cried Mrs Stoutley, earnestly, as she looked
through her tears into the seaman's rugged countenance, "and that is my
reason for venturing to ask you now to trouble yourself with--with--"

There was an alarming symptom here of a recurrence of "squally wea